Survival
by automaticstop
Summary: Axel and Demyx balance each other out perfectly. But they’re not complete. AxelDemyxRoxas
1. I

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.

Warning: This is boy x boy (x boy XD), so if you don't like that, then just don't read it. It's really that simple.

Summary: Axel and Demyx balance each other out perfectly. But they're not complete. Axel x Demyx x Roxas. Will be in three parts.

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**I**

There's only one thing missing from Axel and Demyx's relationship. Just one small thing, and Axel would brush it off as inconsequential if he only knew how: emotion. It's just not there. There's no love, happiness, hate, sadness, envy, despair, loneliness, comfort, anger, pain….nothing. Their relationship just exists, the same way that they do. An unquestioned and unquestionable fact of their non-life.

They've been together for a long time, Axel realises. Long, cold days filled with nothing but survival. That's all they know, all they understand. Food, sleep, sex and survival. It's all they can do and all they are capable of doing. But they have been together for a long time. He wonders if that is an important fact, but he can't seem to grasp the idea that it means anything at all. It's just survival. Two together are stronger than one, and it helps to pass the time. There's nothing else to do. It's just existence.

They compliment each other perfectly. Axel is fire and Demyx is water. Any trait that the other is lacking is provided in the other. But they're not complete. They don't have hearts. They don't share anything more than a bed.

But then Roxas arrives. Quiet one moment and brutal the next, his words lash out at them as if he actually has a heart. Roxas behaves as though he has a heart. And no matter how many times Axel and Demyx point out to him that he doesn't, Roxas still behaves the same way. They're drawn to him, irresistibly, not hurt by his initial harsh words and actions and not discouraged by them either. It seems worth it all just to see a reaction, just to see Roxas kick Demyx and punch Axel. Eventually Roxas seems to resign himself to the fact that the two Nobodies are going to follow him around and refuse to leave him alone. Eventually, he finds that he doesn't mind it as much as he thought he would.

Roxas isn't sure how it happens. One moment he, Axel and Demyx are talking in Axel's room, and then the next he's waking up in Axel's bed, sandwiched between the two of them. He turns his face to the side, and sees Axel staring piercingly at him through the ever present gloom. Axel sees him looking, gives a feral smile, and then says, "Sorry, Roxas. But we've got you now and we're not going to let go of you without a fight."

And just like that they're finally complete. Roxas has a heart. It might only be one heart, but, between the three of them, it seems to spread out and fill in all the gaps. Whatever they can't feel, they know that they can look at Roxas and see it in his eyes. It's enough. They are together, and, no matter how imperfect, they are complete.

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Part two will be up within the next few days…hope you've enjoyed! 


	2. II

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.

Warning: This is boy x boy so if you don't like that, then just don't read it. It's really that simple.

Part two of three. Read, review, and enjoy!

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**II**

"Axel, you're changing."

"Does that bother you?" Axel asks, not even attempting to open his eyes and look up at Demyx.

Demyx looks away, and then says, "No, of course not."

But they can both feel it. A slight shift in the emptiness, a twinge, and the thought: Why doesn't it bother me? Why don't I have a heart?

The silence hangs heavily between them in a way they've never noticed before, and maybe Axel only imagines Demyx speaking, but he thinks he hears a quiet voice say: "Actually, it terrifies me."

Because ever since Roxas arrived, they've both felt the slow change that shouldn't exist, and never did exist before. It wasn't that noticeable at first, but by now, it seems to them that the realisation is ringing constantly in their heads. Because now, instead of nothing and again nothing, there's that brief flicker of emotion, a small flare of love or anger or hate or jealousy or pain or…

Time goes on. And maybe Roxas knows the effect he's having on them, and maybe he doesn't. He doesn't mention it, but they see the flash of something in eyes when he looks at them. It takes them a long time to realise what it is, but Axel finally puts a name to it: hope. Roxas thinks they're going to change completely, feel emotions the way he does. Not strongly, Roxas says, but still there. They still exist.

Axel thinks that maybe emotions don't matter so much as long as they can all stay complete together. But then he thinks that he's never worried about anything like that before.

- - -

They sit on the roof and look up at Kingdom Hearts. A pale glow falls across them, and Axel remembers a time when there was no moon at all. He remembers looking up at the empty sky that never changed and knowing, somehow, that it was wrong. There was something missing. The world was just as incomplete as they were. Empty.

"Do you really not remember any emotions? Not even from your old lives?" Roxas asks, quietly, not meeting either of their gazes. Demyx is too absorbed in watching the way the moonlight is falling across his hands to answer, but Axel answers for them both by saying,

"No."

They all know it's a lie, just like everything else. They pretend that they don't remember the way that every now and then Axel wakes up screaming, begging, pleading for it to stop and that it hurts so much – all before the emptiness descends again, and his eyes seem to move far away from them, and the Axel that they know is back.

"Don't you miss having a heart?" Roxas asks next, even though he already knows what answer he'll get.

"How can we miss it if we don't remember what it's like to have one?" Demyx says, and then, "Humans complicate everything. Perhaps we're better off without all of that."

There's nothing else to say on the subject, they all know. Nothing that they haven't said before.

"Looks like rain," Axel says, just to fill the silence. "It's not like it would actually bother me, but my instincts are telling me I won't enjoy getting soaked very much."

Demyx cranes his head back, looks up at the sky critically. "I don't see any signs of rain. But I wish it would. I love the rain." He looks back towards the others, and realises that they're both staring at him. "What?" He asks, before, "Oh!", in a perfect mimicry of surprise.

Axel looks at him and smiles, in what, Roxas thinks, would probably have been sadness, if he had been human.


	3. III

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.

Warning: This is boy x boy, so if you don't like that, then just don't read it. It's really that simple.

Final part. Thanks for reading, and please leave some feedback!

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**III**

They don't understand now, but they will, soon enough. He has to find the answers to all the questions that the other Nobodies don't understand. He has to find Sora. He has to. And once he has his answers, once he understands all the who's and what's and why's and how's, he'll come back to them. And then they will be complete once more. But he just needs some time.

He leaves when Demyx is on a mission. He knows that if both of his lovers were there they'd resort to violence, or to begging that they didn't really feel but that they knew Roxas couldn't deny. He can't fight against the two of them, but maybe one…because then they aren't finished, they aren't balanced, there are vital parts of them missing and they won't be able to stop him. They won't stop him as long as he leaves now, before the regret and guilt that he shouldn't be feeling strangles him. As long as he doesn't turn and look into Axel's eyes. As long as he doesn't see the hint of the _something_ that has been growing in them, so slowly, since they met. Axel doesn't have any emotions. Demyx doesn't have any emotions.

They won't miss him, because they can't.

- - -

Axel was fire. He burnt and destroyed everything. But he also protected, fiercely. Even without a heart, he seemed temperamental and aggressive and vain. Demyx was water. He matched Axel's violence with calmness. He soothed and comforted and healed without realising he was doing it. He was more of a healer than a fighter, balancing out Axel's destructive instincts. Roxas was their heart. The core of their emotions, the person to look to to see what emotions they should be feeling. He blazed between gentleness and brutality, aware that his actions only affected them on the surface. He had only wanted answers.

And then one by one, they were gone.


End file.
